Translation copyright 2001 Neil W. Bernstein; all rights reserved.
The story of Hostilius Mancinus, one of the aediles and the prostitute Manilia; and the decree of the tribunes to whom Manilia appealed.
- As I was reading the ninth book of Ateius Capito’s Miscellany, entitled On public judgments, I came across a particular decree of the tribunes that seemed to me full of ancient grandeur.
- That is why I remember it. It was written for this reason and to this purpose:
- Aulus Hostilius Mancinus was a curule aedile. He served a summons on the prostitute Manilia in order to try her before the Roman people, because one night he had been hit by a stone thrown from her floor of an apartment building. He even showed the wound made by this stone.
- Manilia appealed to the tribunes of the people.
- She explained to them that Mancinus had come to her building dressed like a party-goer. It had not been her choice to admit him; but when he forced an entry, she drove him away with stones.
- The tribunes decreed that the aedile had been legally removed from a place which it was not appropriate for him to enter wearing a garland (1). Consequently they interceded in order to prevent the aedile from bringing the case before the people.
Notes:
- I.e., not on official business.
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